


Snowdrops

by Quecksilver_Eyes



Category: Guardians of Childhood & Related Fandoms, Guardians of Childhood - William Joyce, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen, and it's thawing, anyway, but i still pu the character death in the tags bc he's still dead y'know, jack watches a funeral, ok so technically no one dies bc jack is already dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 16:48:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13194369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quecksilver_Eyes/pseuds/Quecksilver_Eyes
Summary: Curiously, Jack floats closer, inspects the tear stained cheeks of the children who sing and sob and shiver. Their faces are red, their little fingers clutched around little bouquets of flowers: snowdrops and daffodils and pussy willow. They leave trails of blossoms in their wake and Jack reaches out for them, laughs and smiles.Or: Jack is a new born spirit, his frost thaws and he watches as Burgess buries one of their own.





	Snowdrops

The snowdrops bloom against the sky and Jack's bones ache. He paints his lake, frost forming and melting under his fingers, when he hears footsteps. The snow under his bare feet hardens and breaks as he steps on it and the air around him is warm and heavy. It sticks to him like syrup and he feels the frost on his cheeks melt away.

He turns around and a woman walks through him, blue light in his core flickering. He flinches and flies up, watches from the safety of the Wind’s loving embrace. His name is Jack Frost. The moon told him so. And the Wind whispers it to him now, too, as he watches the greening, blooming ground. Below him, a group of people makes its way towards the little hill, a song vibrating between them, broken up by sobs and sniffles. The woman who walked through him leads them, a little girl in her arms, with messy brown hair. The girl is wailing loudly, barely fits her mouth around the tunes before breaking out into tears again, clings to the woman’s cloak. It must still be cold for them, Jack thinks. The frost drips as water from his cheeks and he shudders.

He flies a circle, lets the wind carry him higher and higher, chasing the cold, and when he looks down again, he sees that the procession is carrying a wooden box, lopsided and full of nails in places where they don’t belong. One of the men, with brown hair and wearing a dark cloak that’s almost black, seems to almost collapse with the weight of it.

Curiously, Jack floats closer, inspects the tear stained cheeks of the children who sing and sob and shiver. Their faces are red, their little fingers clutched around little bouquets of flowers: snowdrops and daffodils and pussy willow. They leave trails of blossoms in their wake and Jack reaches out for them, laughs and smiles.

They walk through him, little feet stumbling over roots and sticks and Jack’s insides burn. He shoots up into the sky, the Wind curling around him soothingly. His cloak feels heavy on his shoulders. The man in the dark cloak carrying the casket stumbles and inside the wooden box Jack can hear heavy objects knocking against each other.

It is filled with stones, he realises, just as the man starts crying, shoulders heaving. The little girl clinging to the woman jumps to the ground and runs to hug him, hides her little face in his clothes and he wraps his arms around her.

Jack feels hollow and heavy, feels as if the Wind might drop him, as if his bones solidified beneath his lungs, beneath his flat breathing. It’s too warm here, too warm for his frost and his snow, everything melts and blooms and lives.

The flowers bloom beneath his feet, break through the melting snow and the hardened, sleepy earth, in hues of blue and yellow and green and pink, and the man straightens up, clutches onto the wooden box and the group starts moving again, moves towards the hill under Jack’s curious gaze and his melting frost, carry a coffin filled with stones, wailing and sobbing and crying, stumbling, holding onto each other.

They stop right under the old willow tree he used to practice his frost patterns on and the woman takes the shovel she’s been carrying and starts digging. After a few strokes, she passes it on to the next person, still singing quietly, still sobbing. They continue to pass it around until the hole is deep enough for a grown man to stand upright in.

As they lower the wooden box, Jack hovers over the little girl, who is wailing at the top of her lungs now, watching the coffin disappear. The children throw the flowers into the grave and the adults start shovelling the dirt back on it.

And Jack waits.

He waits until the last child has sung their goodbyes, until the flowers start making their way through the earth again, until spring arrives, a little new born winter spirit, frost dripping from his cheeks and his clothes, watering the blooming flowers.

Centuries later, when children can see him, when he has fought his way off the naughty list, when his bones feel light and hollow again, he still thinks about this day in March, when he first experienced spring and new beginnings, and looks at Jamie, who looks like a little girl with lopsided hair and big brown eyes who wailed for her brother who drowned beneath the spring thawed ice.


End file.
